Since we drove to California and needed to get from San Francisco to San Diego anyways, we planned an entire day to drive down the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway, also known as Highway 1. I now know why it's such a famous road trip because it was breathtaking. It honestly felt like we had to be in Europe because the scenery was so unique. We didn't drive all of the PCH that day since we hopped on south of San Francisco and then cut over to the 5 somewhere in the middle of the state, but we got to spend several hours on it and saw some of the most famous lookouts.

The first handful of pictures were taken at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve (I'm linking the Google image search to show you how amazing it is), which has stunning cliffside views and lots of trails. We spent way longer than planned here because we kept hiking and hiking to discover new views. Some of the trails and lookouts had people on them, but then sometimes we would have cliffs completely to ourselves. We also hiked off of a trail and got probably 100-200 feet away from sea lions sunning themselves on a secluded beach. It was amazing! The only downside to this adventure was that I was stupidly wearing a sundress and sandals - ugh.

We then continued down the coast as a heavy fog rolled in, which you'll notice in my photos of the Bixby Bridge and at a couple of lookouts near it. This hindered our views quite a bit, but it also made for a really interesting vibe in photos. We hiked up this crazy hill on a tiny dirt path overhanging the highway and I was scared to death! You can see how narrow it was in my two photos of the bridge, but it was worth it because we got such great shots of the bridge and surrounding terrain. Fortunately, the sun came back out for the last bit of our drive and we stopped at a few more lookouts before heading to a faster route to San Diego.

Along those lines, I will warn you that it takes a long time to make it down Highway 1! It's incredibly curvy, plus you can't drive super fast on the curves and with all of the traffic, so it just takes so much longer than you would expect. You also have to factor in all of the times you'll want to stop for pictures and to take in the views, which you should absolutely do. I also didn't have any cell service for a few hours, which made it feel like an even more foreign experience.

All in all, it was by far one of my very favorite days of our trip, and it was an incredible adventure I would highly recommend experiencing for yourself someday!